


Mildly Irate Max

by Ossobuco



Series: Lena'n'Max [1]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Saints Row
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mad Max, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Amnesia, F/F, Guns, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 21:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4892596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ossobuco/pseuds/Ossobuco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The warlord Archangel, leader of the Saints, pulls a surprise out of a pit fight when attacking a rival stronghold. Mad Max AU with <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/weeghostie">weeghostie</a>'s Boss, Max Eshkibog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mildly Irate Max

A grenade from Kinzie’s newly-upgraded launcher blasts apart the settlement’s gates like they’re made of aluminum foil, and through the splinters of wood and metal and the cloud of choking dust and flame, skids the gleaming purple Mack truck, as decked out for the war path as it’s ever been—reinforced cab, spiked wheels and bed, and a trailer specifically designed for firefights, which the Saints have affectionately nicknamed the Murder Mobile.

Gathered around the metal cage dug into the center of the sprawling entrance to the Hollow, the crowd surges back and away as if it were a single, fluid body, and in the rows of seats overlooking it all, the Warlord Jackhammer’s soldiers scramble for their guns.

Lena jack-knifes the Mack and brings it to a screaming halt, sand spraying from its tires and smoke pouring from the exhaust stacks. She pops the hatch at the top of her cab, hauls herself and her rifle up through it, and with barely a moment to aim, snaps the man at Jackhammer’s right clean between his eyebrows. Blood spatters, and he topples, limp.

“ _I hope you’re listening, you sand-pissing sons of bitches_ ,” she bellows over the crowd, and fires a second bullet into the neck of the woman on the warlord’s left. She gapes and coughs blood before she falls. “ _Because **this - is - what – happens** when you attack a Saints caravan_!”

Jackhammer rises to his feet, kicking aside one of the bodies. He is a bulldog of a man, short but muscular, black ink spiraling up his wide neck and keloid scars on his face. With an unimpressed snarl on his face that reveals three crooked gold teeth, he springs down from the seats and draws two long-barreled revolvers. Lena ducks back into the cab as he fires—two shots that she can feel whizzing above her scalp—then takes a lower position, her gun resting on the smooth cab roof.

Answering fire emanates from the trailer, as small panels open all along its side. No bullets hit Jackhammer, but the soldiers around him in various states of drawing their weapons fall one by one. Jackhammer looks more furious than frightened, but then there are two loud _cracks_ and both his guns go spinning from his hands. Beneath Lyna in the cab, Johnny Gat cocks his .44 Magnum and grins.

With the way clear, Lena slings her rifle back over one shoulder and jumps down from the top of the cab, landing heavily among a cloud of dust. _Now_ , Jackhammer is beginning to look afraid, with no weapons and nowhere to hide, and Lena smirks with cruel satisfaction. With a snap of her wrist, she pulls a pistol from inside her leather jacket, takes aim at Jackhammer, and fires—a bullet screams hardly an inch past his ear, and in the moment where his eyes go wide with terror and shock, she sprints to him and kicks his left knee in with a visceral _crunch_. He screams as he collapses.

“You think you can just take things that aren’t yours?” Lena shouts at him, driving one foot down on his broken knee for emphasis. His face is drained white as he rolls over and clutches at the limb, sand clinging to his clothes and collecting in the moisture around his eyes and mouth. “You think you can take from _my_ people? Well, you just earned yourself a visit from the _fucking Archangel_.”

The Archangel—a dead shot who drove in from the west years ago, and who (according to rumor) singlehandedly took the Saints from small-time marauders to the most respected power within two days’ drive—is not known for her mercy, especially towards people who steal from her. She racks the pistol’s slide and aims down at Jackhammer’s head.

… but a noise gets her attention before she can pull the trigger. A few of Jackhammer’s surviving guards are gathered around one side of the cage, brandishing their crude weapons—bats, spears, one’s lucky enough to have found a cattle prod—at what, Lena can’t tell. She signals to a few of her nearby Saints to cover her would-be victim, holsters her pistol, and swings her rifle back around into her hands.

There is growing panic in the guards’ voices, and increasing hesitation in the way they hold their line, and before Lena can approach, something makes them all start backwards. The one with the cattle prod gives slightly less ground than the others, but not by much.

And there, climbing hand-over-hand up the cage bars, is one of the tallest and fiercest women Lena has ever seen. Her thick arms and bulky shoulders ripple profoundly with the effort, muscle and tendon moving beneath skin that is tanned and reddened and scarred halfway to hell. Her hair might be dark red, but it’s difficult to tell with the amount of blood that is soaked and crusted in it, dripping over parts of her face and coating her arms and knees. Lena suspects that very little of the blood is hers.

The woman clears ground level and anchors her boots on the edge of the sand. The guards are beginning to back away, looking behind them and between each other in terror. She wraps her hands around two of the vertical iron bars, each a good two inches thick—and there’s no way, Lena thinks, even with as strong as the woman looks—

The metal begins to bend. The woman’s face starts to go red and her arms and shoulders bulge, but her grip never slacks, and the bars give inch after inch with terrible whining, shrieking sounds. Some of the horizontal crossbars begin to snap and buckle, and almost hidden amid the noise, she is roaring with the effort, raw and rough and gritty, until there’s a gap big enough to push through. She doesn’t hesitate for a moment before doing so, and faster than Lena can blink, the guard with the cattle prod is dead on the ground with a broken neck.

The four others converge on her in mortal terror. She grabs two by their forearms, one in each hand, and with a wrench of her whole body, throws them both against the broken bars of the cage so hard that they crumple on the spot. The third grabs for her, but by now she’s picked up the cattle prod and jams it overhand into his throat. Behind her, the fourth reaches for something at his belt—the knife flashes in the overhead sun—in an instant, Lena raises her rifle, sights him, _crack_ —

 And the woman freezes, turning her head towards Lena, aware of her for the first time in the quiet that descends.

“Take it easy,” Lena says in the kind of slow, even voice she might use with an agitated animal. She lowers her rifle inch by inch, until it’s no longer aimed directly at the woman, but the look in her eyes—both raw panic and a kind of calculation—keeps her finger ready over the trigger.

On the ground inside the cage, she counts three bodies. Two of them lie with grayish skin in pools of their own blood and viscera. A third, enormously tall and broad, is still bleeding from the throat, and one of his arms—the fingers of which still cling reflexively to an oversized sledgehammer—is broken so severely that thin tatters of flesh are all that keep it in one piece. This woman, the sole survivor, is clearly a fighter with experience in the pit, and either a lot of enthusiasm or a _lot_ of anger.

The woman says nothing, watching every move of Lena’s, and the slow approach of a few other Saints, with wide eyes.  Her mouth is half-open for air, chest heaving, sweat from the fight and the hot sun beginning to draw lines through the blood and sand on her skin. Lena notes the way her weight is shifted forward and knows she’s prepared to attack at any moment, and for all Lena knows, that moment could be the second that she lets her guard down.

She lowers her rifle anyway, a controlled movement, until it hangs by its own weight from the strap and she can move her hands away from it, fingers splayed. The other Saints appear varying degrees of uncomfortable, but they take their leader’s cue and angle their guns down.

Her weight easing back to center, the woman relaxes (if only slightly) from her combative posture. In fact, her shoulders start to hunch by a few degrees, and though she still watches Lena with suspicion in her eyes, her overall manner is remarkably sheepish for someone who just killed four people in about as many seconds. It’s almost like she doesn’t quite know what to do with herself now that there’s no obvious threat.

“Attagirl.” A dry breeze whips at the sand at their feet. Lena doesn’t dare to move, or to take her eyes off the woman.  “What’s your name?”   

The woman’s eyes flicker down, and she purses her lips and sighs a choppy breath out her nose. It’s as if... she isn’t sure. From the way her eyes seem to search the dirt and gravel at her feet, it’s like she has no idea at all.

“Hey, Boss,” Johnny says, moving around behind the woman. Her eyes jump up to follow him, but she doesn’t protest. “She’s got a tattoo on her neck. It says… uh, Max. I dunno, could be an old boyfriend, or—”

But the woman turns her head towards him in a surprised little jerk as he says the name. (Everyone around her, except for Lena, suddenly stands a little straighter and holds their guns a little tighter.) Lena repeats it, and the woman’s eyes flicker to her, confused, maybe even worried.

“That’s your name?” Lena asks.

The woman shrugs, her eyebrows raised.

“Well, it’ll do for now, right?” She backs up a few steps, jerks her head towards the war rig. “C’mon. We can get you out of here.”

Practically out of nowhere, Jackhammer coughs and fights to sit up, all but forgotten where he’s curled on the desert pavement. “You… can’t… have that,” he wheezes. “That’s _my_ —“

Lena steps towards him and jams the butt of her rifle into his throat.

“Your _what_?” she snaps. As the man chokes and gurgles, she signals to the rest of the Saints, and hoists herself into the driver’s seat of the cab while they file back to their places. Before she shuts the door, she leans out to the cage fighter, who is eyeing Jackhammer like she wants to tear his heart out through his mouth. “Hey, you coming? The sleeper’s open.”

Lena turns away to enter her killswitch sequence and start the rig, but judging from the sounds she hears before the sleeper cab door opens and Max slides in onto the bench, Jackhammer won’t be causing them any more trouble.

***             *             ***

Saints Row is half a day’s drive west, at first glance nothing but a sand-heaped ruin, its most visible feature a large statue standing waist-deep in a dune. The statue’s face is almost completely eroded, and its left arm is broken off at the elbow; someone has spray-painted a fleur-de-lis in purple on its chest. The ruin was once a church, and though it was probably not the only building here before, its thick stone walls and battered pillars are all that remain.

The Mack rumbles and slows as it passes the statue, and with a grinding sound audible even over the diesel clatter, a door in the facing wall (tagged by numerous hands and in several shades of purple) slides upward. Lena guides the truck inside, where the half-intact ceiling provides some relief from the sun and the wind; enclosed by the stone, it is a little cooler, and the ground is firm under their tires.

Lena jumps down from the cab, and the rest of her crew follows suit—Gat and Shaundi from the cab, the rest from the trailer. They file past other cars and smaller trucks, some like new and others in varying states of repair, to disappear behind a door made of corrugated steel in the darkest corner of the ruin.

Max glances in nervous jerks about the garage as she climbs out of the sleeper, moving quickly to follow the others and escape this area of so many obstructed sight lines and dark hiding places. A pair of skinny war boys look up from the manifold of a sandblasted Camaro to watch her, and she gives them a warning glare and a wide berth.

The other Saints quickly disappear behind the door, but Lena waits in the shaded corner while Max finds her way around, staying close to the walls once she’s made it out of the crooked rows of car parts and scrap. Blood still clings in drying flakes to her hair and face, and stiff patches of it stain her clothes—a fraying denim vest with some sort of harness poking from beneath it, heavy leather boots that might once have been black, cargo shorts faded to almost the same color as the sand dusting off of them. Lena makes a mental note to give the sleeper a thorough cleaning, though Max is far from the first bloody passenger to have ridden there.

“C’mon.” Once Max has come to an awkward halt beside her, Lena shoves the steel door open, and they descend down a narrow staircase cut into the bedrock. The only light is what filters through a grate far above, and Lena can almost feel Max go stiff as the door shuts behind them. They spiral down, the stone worn dark and smooth, until the passage opens into wide hallway dimly lit by electric bulbs, the walls made alternately of hewn stone, plaster, and brick, the ceiling gently arched.

“The Catacombs,” Lena remarks. “There are a few other ways up, mostly to defensive positions, but only the one way in. It’s about the safest place there is out here.”

She points out the more important features: the large communal spaces, almost more caverns than rooms with their rough walls and vaulted ceilings, furnished with shabby tables and chairs, mattresses, makeshift hammocks; the handful of private rooms for the older or higher-ranked Saints ; the smaller storage rooms filled with weapons and ammo, packaged foodstuffs, tools, medical supplies, whatever else they’ve salvaged on raids or been given by allies. In one of the shared washrooms, she demonstrates use of the well-worn cast iron pump, which sputters and coughs before clear water begins to flow.

“Well water—it’s safe for washing or drinking.” _For now, at least_ , but she doesn’t give voice to the longstanding worry. She fills a glass and offers it to Max, who brings it under her nose and sniffs intently before taking a few gulps. Lena fills a cup for herself and drinks, while Max pours a little water into her hand and splashes it over her face and hair, dislodging a little of the dried blood and rinsing some of the grit from her skin. She shakes her head, her short auburn curls spraying droplets, and silently holds the glass out to Lena.

“What d’you think? Pretty cozy, right?” Lena rinses the glasses, then her hands, scrubbing some of the sand from between her fingers and under her nails. Max is looking around again with an eyebrow dubiously raised, one hand still working at a bloody tangle in her hair. Whatever is going on beneath the chatoyance of her near-black eyes, Lena can’t guess, but when Lena gestures and begins to walk again, Max follows.

There are a few spare beds in one of the communal sleeping areas, conveniently in one of the more sheltered corners of the irregularly-shaped room. Max doesn’t appear to have any belongings other than what she’s carrying in her pockets—whatever she might have had before arriving in Jackhammer’s Hollow, Lena doubts Max would (or could) answer if she asked—but there are rations to go around, and plenty of supplies, towels and spare clothes and some greasy soap made by the next settlement to the east. If she needs anything else, Lena assures her, the Saints can provide.

Max coughs a little, and Lena interrupts her 180 degree turn to see her stand awkwardly still for a moment, eyes low, and then make a quick cramped gesture with her hands. Seeing Lena’s eyebrows quirk in total incomprehension, she simply points one finger roughly at Lena’s sternum, and her eyes flicker back up with some mixture of wariness, curiosity, even a dash of expectation.

“ _Oh_.” It wouldn’t do for Max to only call her—think of her as, whatever—the Archangel. That was enough for anyone outside the compound, but for someone staying with them, even as a guest? The Saints were better than that. “Yeah. My name’s Lena.”

*             *             *

It’s well past midnight and Lena is entering that state of not-quite-sleep where thoughts trail off into engine rumblings and images of skylines that she isn’t sure are memories or dreams, when there is a sound outside of her room in the catacombs. Soft, shuffling footsteps, the sounds made when someone who knows nothing about being stealthy tries to stay quiet. Barely breathing, Lena grabs the pistol and clip stowed under her pillow and slides out from between the sheets.

She creeps to the door, bare feet silent on the sandy stone floor, and listens. The noises from outside have stopped, but that doesn’t mean the threat is gone; she cracks the door, then throws it open to scan back and forth, her finger on the trigger as she aims.

There’s no one in the hallway, except Max.

Seated with her back against the wall just beside Lena’s door, she tenses at the sight of the gun—one arm is on the wall and ready to push off, and her boots scrape underneath her, whole body prepared to spring. Her dark eyes have taken on a faint feral glimmer, and Lena moves her finger off the trigger, lowering the weapon. Max leans back again, body relaxing with a slow sigh.

“Okay,” Lena says. “What are you doing?”

Max looks up at her and raises her eyebrows.

“I know the rooms are kind of shitty, but you’re safe there. Really.”

Max looks ahead again, where one of the dull hanging bulbs illuminates an ellipsis of crumbling stone. Eyes flickering down, her brows knit, and she makes a few precise gestures, her hands quick one moment, halting the next, until her communication trails off.

As before, Lena doesn’t have the faintest idea what the signs are supposed to mean, other than a sense of the thought remaining unfinished. She glances up and down the hallway once more, just for good measure. “I really don’t get it.”

With a quiet sigh, Max steadies herself against the wall and stands slowly. In the late hour and near-darkness, being reminded of her size and sheer strength is more than a little sobering—she’s almost a head taller than Lena’s six-foot-even, and the bulk of her shoulders and arms puts Lena’s chiseled physique to shame. Of course, Lena hasn’t forgotten watching her tear through the cage bars or throw a grown man like a rag doll—nor has she forgotten the wild look on her face, teeth bared, eyes wide and white-ringed like an animal’s. The Saints’ reluctance to bring Max back to the Row isn’t unwarranted.

There’s a sort of hesitance, almost a slouch, to her shoulders, however, and the caution with which she looks back at Lena borders on diffidence. Exactly how much of a threat she is has yet to be determined, but Lena has an inexplicable feeling—she’s had it since Jackhammer’s Hollow—that Max belongs here in the Row, and that even if the Saints don’t see that now, they will, eventually.

“You can come in, if you want?” Lena tucks the pistol in her waistband and moves a little back from the door, holding it open just wide enough to admit Max. “I mean, at least sleep on my couch instead of out there on the floor.”

Max enters as if a part of her believes it could be a trap; she transfers her weight slowly as she steps through the door, ducking her head an inch or two and taking her time in scanning the dark room. There aren’t many hiding places, Lena’s made sure of that, but after a few moments of wandering, Max has checked all of them; the gap between Lena’s mattress and the far wall, the shadows behind a few boxes of ammo and supplies and odd trinkets collected over the years, the washroom just barely illuminated by the beam of the hallway’s light. Then, finally, she returns to the threadbare tweed couch jammed back against the wall, and sits stiffly down, elbows on her knees.

Lena sits down on the foot of her bed, arms propped behind her. “So,” she says lazily, heedless of the guarded glances that Max is still throwing occasionally around the room. “How long were you at Jackhammer’s Hollow?”

Max’s shoulders bunch in a gruff, stiff shrug. She avoids Lena’s eyes, but Lena doesn’t read it as evasive or deceptive; quite the opposite, she doesn’t find herself very surprised. If Max isn’t even certain of her own name, the things she does remember must be precious few.

“A long time?”

A shift of Max’s shoulders and slight tilt of her head manage to convey, _I guess_.

“Been wanting to kill that son of a bitch for months, just never had a good excuse.” Lena slides off the end of the bed and saunters near the couch, suddenly too restless to be comfortable seated. “You know, I came from west of here, a long ride west. Rode most of it alone, getting by mostly on luck and bullets, and, well. Eventually the luck ran out. So did the bullets.”

She smirks as she half-sits on the arm of the couch, arms crossed. “The Saints saved my sorry ass. They weren’t shit back then, but they still took me in, and I…”

Whether Max is still listening or not is unclear, but her attention is definitely elsewhere; from one of the boxes shoved near the couch, more duct tape than cardboard at this point, she’s picked up a dog collar woven from gray paracord, roughed and fraying and made to fit a large, stocky breed. A few tags dangle from the clasp, cut roughly from scrap aluminum and flattened shell casings, and presently Max is glossing her thumb over them as a furrow works itself between her eyebrows. Once Lena’s voice trails off, though, she turns her head back again, concern and curiosity in her raised brows.

“Her name was Lieu,” Lena answers after a few moments. “Big old pit bull—I think she had some Rottie in her, too. My best soldier, and the biggest lap dog you’d ever meet.”

The question has not left Max’s eyes, so Lena adds, “she got bone cancer. Last year.”

“’m sorry,” Max grunts, her voice dry and sandy, air whistling in her throat like an old turbo charger.

“It’s all r—” Lena begins, before what’s just happened fully sinks in, and then breaks off into a comical double-take, staring at Max with her jaw slack. For her part, Max appears no less shocked, her eyebrows scrunching over the crooked bridge of her nose; with one hand still cradling the dog collar, she raises the other to her mouth, slowly covering her lips, then dropping it again and staring at it in total perplexity.

There is not a single thing that Lena can think to say, for whatever finally drove Max to speak or whatever has kept her silent until now, but Max doesn’t seem to be paying enough attention to care. She looks between her empty hand and the dog collar, and in a still-reedy voice, she mumbles, “I had a… a dog. I…” Confusion creeps onto her face, and she makes another series of gestures, almost as if she isn’t aware that she’s still speaking. “Don’ remember.”

Lena doesn’t consider how bad of an idea it might be to touch Max unexpectedly; it’s a matter of instinct for her to reach out and pat her shoulder, to try to comfort her through physical contact. But as soon as Lena’s hand settles on her, Max’s head jerks up, pure panic in her eyes, and in one blinding combustion she shoulder-checks Lena into the wall and wrests her arm above her head. Her hand is twisting the gun from Lena’s grasp before Lena even realizes she’d drawn it, mouth open and teeth bared and lips pulled back in a snarl, and then there’s a jagged edge of cold metal against Lena’s skull.

Lena holds very still. She doesn’t fight, now that she can hear the terror in Max’s breathing and feel the trembling of her hands. She doesn’t speak or swallow, hardly dares to breathe, until the pressure against the side of her head vanishes and Max lets go of her wrist. Looking down, Max backs away, blinking a few times almost compulsively before shaking her head. Slowly, her shoulders hunched, she sits back down on the couch.

“It’s okay,” Lena offers quietly. Careful to make all her movements visible and deliberate, she steps a little towards her, and very slowly—her hands splayed and held a little ways from her body—sinks onto the cushion next to her. “I mean, shit, nothing’s _okay_ , and I know this ain’t easy to remember, but nobody’s gonna hurt you here.”

She makes sure that Max can see her this time—the woman is facing forward, but her head tilts a little to watch Lena from the corner of her eye—and lifts one hand, smooth and slow, to Max’s shoulder. At first contact, Lena feels her flinch, but she doesn’t pull away or resist. Under the fraying denim, Max’s deltoid is huge and tense, and Lena can hardly feel her collarbone under the thick cords of muscle and tendon at the base of her neck. She squeezes slightly, in an experimental sort of way, and Max glances over a little more directly.

 “You know, we’ve got food and water, work to do if you want it, plenty of cars, lots of guns… plus, I mean, there’s the Murder Mobile.”  Lena grins as winningly as she knows how. “Hard to say no to a giant purple death rig.”

Max looks more bewildered by this than anything, looking down at the gun still in her hands. She fiddles with it for a few seconds, popping the clip in and out with frenetic little motions of her fingers, and pauses for another long moment. Then, with an assenting shrug and a grunt, she passes Lena the pistol.

Lena’s eyes soften, and she smiles. “Sleep on my couch, okay? I wake up a lot during the night, but I’ll keep quiet, I promise.”

*             *             *

The next night—after Lena’s spent most of the day cleaning out and tuning up her truck with unexpected assistance in the form of a stone-silent and wary-eyed Max, handing her tools or fetching jugs of water or oil—the same shuffling footsteps wake her, and again she opens her door to find Max waiting next to it. It’s the same the night after, and the night after that, until one early morning, Max stalks down into the passage to find Lena’s door already open, if only by a few inches.

She shuts the door as she enters, pushing until the latch clicks. In the dim yellow cast of the bedside light, Lena is wiping down the parts of her disassembled pistol, sitting up in bed with the blankets pulled up to her waist.

“I woke up a little while ago,” she offers as explanation without looking up from the weapon as she begins to reassemble it. “Figured it was about that time. You know you can just come on in, right? You don’t have to wait around outside.”

Max does her own little double-take at the proposition, shuffling towards her usual place on the couch, where a blanket and pillow are still piled from the previous night.

“Hey,” Lena says, snapping the last parts of the gun in place, and Max goes stock-still. “Look, that can’t be comfortable four nights running. Come and sleep in the bed, there’s plenty of room. Nope, don’t you dare,” she adds, seeing Max hunch and start to raise a hand as if to wave off the offer. “You won’t wake me up, don’t worry. Come on.”

It requires no further prompting for Max to turn away from the couch, though she mostly avoids Lena’s eyes as she lies down on the sagging mattress. She settles quickly, her body instantly radiating warmth, and Lena tucks the pistol under her pillow and turns off her light.


End file.
